


Practicing

by therealgrangerdanger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 07:54:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3969994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealgrangerdanger/pseuds/therealgrangerdanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione thinks she should write a love poem for Ginny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practicing

Hermione thinks she should write a love poem for Ginny.

Or maybe a song. 

She wants to immortalize on paper the things that never had words. The things they never said, but thought. Hermione’s instinct is to find comfort in what she thinks is the permanency and power of words. But she knows better. She knows it because here she sits with a blank piece of parchment before her, trying to capture in words the very moments that didn’t need words. That feels good, or I like that. 

And then she realizes that to confine the moment to words – that moment when they learned how to open each other’s mouths, how to move their tongues to make the other moan – is precisely the opposite of why she feels the need to trap these memories in words.

Ginny had already given it a word. Practicing.

She would offer to be the boy, turn out the lights, and kiss Hermione until the two were intoxicated on each other’s taste. She would lift the hem of Hermione’s nightgown and pull the hem of her panties.

And then it was Hermione’s turn to be the boy. 

The ritual was perhaps the only consistent thing at the Burrow that summer. Not even the location seemed to stay the same: the wooden floor, couch, bedroom, back yard, laundry room. The shed overlooking the expanse of the Weasley property was Hermione’s favorite – it had stools that spun and a layer of dirt for a floor. Bill’s old room felt like a cinema, dark and unsuspecting, telling a story to anyone who paid attention. Hermione thought being in Ron’s room was like being in the pages of a burning book, suffocating and mournful for all the stories that would never be told.

She’d have felt worse if Ginny hadn’t been so persistent that they kiss and bite each other’s throats. 

Other times, they would suck each other’s breasts, leaving marks over each other’s skin. They traded hickeys and scratch marks for words, and never spoke of it outside of the spaces that held those moments. 

Practicing, Ginny had called it. 

Sometimes they would wake up sprawled across Ginny’s bed with their legs still locked or crossed, inked-stained fingers burning in a mane of fire.

And now at Hogwarts, Hermione has never mentioned who her first kiss really was from. Ginny Weasley, still sticky with the moisturizer they had shared in the bathroom.  
It’s then when Hermione realizes she wants to write a poem. Not for Ginny. A love poem for what they did on the floor at the Burrow.

She wants to write a love song. Not for Ginny. But for that thick silence in the dark, and that first pure thrill of reluctant desire, just before they made themselves stop.

She doesn’t want to capture it. She wants to protect it and keep it safe between the bindings of her precious books, held there by her own words, and not Ginny’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Marie Howe's poem, "Practicing."


End file.
